Lolo Jones, a role model moms will love

She’s strong, she’s fast, she’s hot, she’s from Iowa and she’s a virgin. For many reasons, Lolo Jones could be the star of the upcoming Olympic games.

AP Photo/Eric Risberg. The Register has a photo gallery of 174 shots of Lolo Jones here.

Jones has an interesting backstory that’s being detailed everywhere from “Rolling Stone” magazine to her home state’s newspaper The Des Moines Register. ESPN featured her in a documentary earlier this week, and HBO’s “Real Sports” broadcast an interview Tuesday night.

At 29-years-old, Lolo Jones has already had a life of overcoming challenges. She’s a multiracial, devout Christian who grew up “dirt poor” with her mom and four siblings in Iowa.

Jones, who competes in the women’s 100-meter hurdles, described living in the basement of a Salvation Army during the ESPN documentary about her life that was broadcast this week.

“I definitely would say, by sixth grade, I was a professional shoplifter and not because I wanted to. I’m not going out to shoplift earrings or clothes or shoes like the average teenager,” Jones says. “I was shoplifting frozen dinners at a grocery store. I could shoplift four frozen dinners, easily.”

Now she’s easily one of the biggest track and field stars in America. She has a sculpted, perfect body, and on top of everything else, she’s opened up about her ongoing struggles to remain a virgin.

“It’s just something, a gift that I want to give to my husband,” Jones said on the HBO special. “But please, understand, this journey has been hard. If there’s virgins out there, I’m going to let them know, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life – harder than training for the Olympics, harder than graduating from college, has been to stay a virgin before marriage.”

It was on Twitter earlier this year that Jones announced to her thousands of followers that she’s a virgin.

“I’ve been tempted,” Jones said in the HBO piece. “I’ve had guys tell me, ‘You know, if you have sex, it will help you run faster.'”

Jones says she’s gotten a lot of support for her beliefs about virginity – mostly from moms.

By LINDA THOMAS